Personalised Number Plate Information

NUMBER PLATES:

A Statutory Off Road Notification is a declaration made by the registered owner of a vehicle that they are removing their car from the public highway.

By doing this, the person will no longer need to pay road tax, as the notification tells the DVLA that a vehicle is registered but not currently being used.

Those who have their insurance and road tax expire and don’t want to renew them may find it makes more sense to declare a SORN instead.

When do I have to make a SORN?
If one of the following situations applies to your vehicle you will need to declare a Statutory Off Road Notification:

You haven’t paid tax for your vehicle
You haven’t paid insurance for your vehicle
You want to break a vehicle down for parts before scrapping it
You purchase or receive a vehicle and don’t want to put it on the road
If you’ve sold a vehicle and been sent a V11 reminder letter, you won’t need to make a SORN, as you’ll receive a confirmation that you no longer have the vehicle within 4 weeks of informing DVLA you’ve sold it.

How do I declare a SORN?
People wanting to declare a Statutory Off Road Notification can go to the DVLA website to fill out the necessary details.

You will receive a refund for any full months of remaining tax, and won’t be able to use the vehicle on the road until you tax it again.

If you want to start the SORN immediately, use the 11 digit number on your vehicle log book (V5C).

If you want it to begin on the first day of the following month, use the 16-digit number on your vehicle tax reminder letter (V11) - but bear in mind this number can only be used once.

If the vehicle isn’t registered in your name you will need to tell the DVLA it’s off the road by post.

You can also send applications in the mail by filling in the V890 application form, or calling the DVLA vehicle service.

ext week the number plate “TAX 1” is up for auction – with bids expected to reach £100,000 – but anyone buying it might want to think twice.

That's because if your car is stolen or written off, it turns out not only is a personalised number plate not covered by insurance, you might lose it forever.

Personalised plates are getting more popular, with 374,968 auctioned off by the DVLA in 2016/17 alone. And while very few of these will cost more than a few hundred pounds, they might all be at risk.

The problem isn't just that the plates aren't covered, it's that unless you're careful when something happens to the car, they could be gone for good.

“A registration number is attached to the vehicle it is assigned to, not the person who purchased it,” said Matt Oliver from GoCompare Car Insurance.

That means if – for whatever reason – your insurance claims the car, they get the plates too.

A number plate for the Swiss canton of Zug has sold anonymously at auction for CHF233,000 ($253,353), breaking the previous record of CHF161,000.

For now, the buyer of the “ZG 10” plate remains unknown, as the item was sold on Wednesday at an anonymous online auction. Several other car and motorcycle plates were auctioned off at the event, the proceeds of which brought more than CHF500,000 to the treasury of the central Swiss canton.

The previous Swiss number plate auction record was set last March by a buyer who paid CHF160,100 for the privilege of owning the canton Valais registration number “VS 1”.

An Emirati businessman set the world record in 2008, paying 52.2 million dirhams (CHF14.4 million) for a plat displaying only the digit “1”.

A personalised registration plate is, by its very nature, very important to the owner and of special, sentimental value.

My wife and I bought one 10 years ago with a new car. When the dealer showed us the numbers it had available, we jokingly asked if we could get a plate that incorporated both our initials. A quick check with DVLA and, £399 later, we have that plate which is now on its third car.

My younger son has one too, bought for his 21st birthday by grandad as something he would keep the rest of his life.

You assume you will always have the plate, swapping it from vehicle to vehicle, but that may not be the case because it is assigned to a vehicle not the person who bought it.

Rare DVLA number plate TAX 1 – which may appeal to tax experts or taxi firms – is expected to fetch up to £100,000 at auction on Thursday which has prompted GoCompare to warn drivers with personalised plates about the insurance implications.

Personal registration numbers are increasingly popular, starting at £250 from the DVLA which sold 374,968 of them in 2016-17.

But GoCompare car insurance says drivers with a personalised plate risk losing it if the vehicle is stolen or written off.

It analysed 302 comprehensive car insurance policies which revealed only 19 specifically cover the loss of a personalised plate if the car was lost or stolen. The sum insured varied from £200 to unlimited.

When an insurance claim is made for the cost of a car, the insurer owns both the vehicle and the registration number assigned to it, even if it’s a personalised plate. The claimant can buy the registration number from the insurer, if it still owns it, for no more than the settlement price. But, if the vehicle has already been disposed of by the insurer, all rights to the registration plate go with the vehicle.

If a car with a personalised plate is stolen and not recovered, its owner will have to wait 12 months to get the plate back. To reclaim the plate, they will have to prove the car had a valid MOT and tax at the time of theft.

Similarly, motorists who have had a car with a personalised plate written off have to arrange for the number to be transferred to another vehicle or retained on a certificate in sufficient time before the claim is settled. Registration numbers move with the vehicle they are assigned to, not the person who bought it. So, if the vehicle is written off and the car scrapped, the number plate can disappear with it.

The policyholder will need to contact the DVLA and their insurer to let them know that they want to keep the plate. The insurer will then write a letter of non-interest and send it to the DVLA.

Matt Oliver, of GoCompare Car Insurance, said: “When you register a personalised plate to a vehicle you need to tell your insurer immediately, otherwise your policy could be invalidated and, particularly if you’ve paid a lot for a registration number, you should consider whether it’s properly insured.”

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Acrylic Number Plates

Acrylic number plates sigify the registration mark of a vehicle.

They can be made of different materials, but more commonly seen are metals and acrylics. But as to how the standard specifications on the use, make and display guidelines of number plates are, it would vary with every city and country. There are some who would prefer to have their number plates more personalized. As long as how it is obtained abides with the regulations, such is possible. In fact, motorists of today are starting to appreciate better the value of vanity plates.

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Most of the time, the agency successfully eradicates any plates that may shock or offend the British public.

But every now and then, one slips through the net.

While they may possess the largest number plate database in the UK with millions of conventional registrations, the website also holds some of the most hilarious and outrageous licence plates DVLA-approved to roam Britain’s roads.

And considering their comical value, some of the best plates carry with them an unbelievable price tag – close to half a million pounds in one instance.

Naturally, the Sun Online Motors team sifted through their archives to compile a list of the top 10 most outrageous number plates in the UK – but don’t be surprised if your favourite shocking plate has an equally outrageous asking price.

10. TTII TTS – £8,499
9. F4 KKA- £16,800
8. 69O MY – £6,999
7. PUII HER – £3,499
6. OR64 SAM – £40,000
5. OO04 OOK – £10,472
4. I5 EXY – £95,000
3. B4I FKU – £9,999
2. MRI3 UTT – £495,000
1. PEN 15 – £110,000

ormerly the most outrageous number plate in Britain, the infamous CUII NNT registration has been banned.

Despite resembling one of the most explicit words in the English language, the licence plate slipped through the DVLA prohibited list in 2016, and was given a value of £6,000.

Some of the country's rudest number plates have been revealed - and could be yours for the cool price of £495,000.

Outrageous plates such as TTII TTS, F4 KKA and PEN 15 are available to buy online for those inclined to splash out on an expensive joke.

Each year, new plates are approved by the DVLA, with a cheeky handful slipping under the invigilators' noses and finding themselves onto Britain's streets.

The list will normally include personalised plates spelling out rude words or potentially offensive messages, as well as religious or homophobic terms.

The list of personalised plates the DVLA believes to be in poor taste runs into many pages.

For the 2016 registration year, the DVLA's censors refused a large number of plates, including B16 COX, CR16 PLE, PR16 CK and BU16 ERY.

Some of the more vulgar terms to be outlawed by the licensing agency include B16 NOB, FA16 OTS and TT16 TTY.

But plenty of new number plate combinations will be allowed, and names are expected to be a high seller.

The private number plate market in the UK is worth around £2.3billion a year, and some number plates can sell for astonishing amounts of money.

In 2014, the plate '25 O' sold for a record-breaking £518,000 at a DVLA agency auction, beating the previous record by nearly £100,000.

A publicly-funded committee meets twice a year to decide which number plates are unsuitable for Britain's roads.

The Minister of Transport, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, says the Ghanaian public is increasingly becoming intolerant of perceived corruption and poor service delivery at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA).

According to him, many of the authority’s clients consider it to be the worst in terms of service delivery, thereby creating avenues for middle men, popularly known as ‘goro boys,’ to take advantage of the stifling bureaucratic system at the place.

He has therefore asked management of the DVLA to quickly deal with the ‘goro boys’ syndrome at their various offices.

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If Sydneysiders thought property prices had hit peak ridiculous, licence number plate collectors have gone one better with the original NSW No.4 plate up for sale for between $1.2 million and $1.4 million.

The asking price tops the $1.18 million median house price in Sydney, and doesn't even include the Rolls-Royce that it was attached to until early last year when it was owned by Aussie John Symond.

The founder and executive chairman of Aussie Home Loans bought it in 2010 from property developer Ivan Holland, who had secured it in an art swap from businessman and art collector John Schaeffer.

Aussie John was approached to sell the 1910-registered plate early last year, but with a $1.2 million price tag the buyer from Asia declined.

Mr Symond has confirmed he sold the plates 18 months ago to a mystery buyer in South Sydney.

Numberplate aficionado Shane Moore said the plate is widely rumoured to have been sold by Mr Symond for about $1 million.

"Single-digit plates rarely trade so quickly," said Mr Moore, who runs the numberplates.com.au website.

"They are usually held within the one family for decades. As an asset class they've appreciated in value in recent years, but they're also a volatile asset. If things go badly, investors will sell off the plates."

Registered in 1910, the No.4 licence plate is the most expensive item set to go under the hammer on August 28 at the 2017 Shannons Sydney Winter Classic Auction.

It tops the asking prices for 26 cars on offer, including a 1924 Rolls-Royce for $120,000, a 1964 Porsche for $125,000 and a Mustang Fastback for $120,000.

Single-digit, heritage licence plates have long been a highly prized collectible among the ultra-wealthy. In 2008, the No.6 NSW number plate sold for $800,000. It topped the previous high of $683,000 paid in 2003 by an Asian businessman for No.2.

The No.1 plate is owned by the family of the late founding chairman of Australian National Airways, Sir Frederick Stewart, who had owned it since the 1930s.

The No.8 plate was regarded as the most valuable because it is regarded as auspicious in traditional Chinese culture. It last traded in 2010 for $500,000.

In Victoria, single-digit number plates are also investment-grade assets. The number 1 VIC plate is owned by former Foster's Group chief Peter Bartels.

In 2013 British businessman Afzal Kahn knocked back £8.5 million for his "F1" numberplate, having bought it for a record £440,000 in 2008, according to The Telegraph in London.

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The first series of number plates were issued in 1903 and ran until 1932, using the series A 1 to YY 9999. The letter or pair of letters indicated the local authority in whose area the vehicle was registered, for example A - London, B - Lancashire, C - West Riding of Yorkshire. In England and Wales the letter codes were initially allocated in order of population size (by the 1901 census) whilst Scotland and Ireland had their own sequences incorporating the letters S" and "I" respectively, which were allocated alphabetically: IA = Antrim, IB = Armagh, etc. When a licensing authority reached 9999, it was allocated another two letter mark, but there was no pattern to these subsequent allocations as they were allocated on a first come first served basis. There are three interesting anomalies where a zero has been issued - The Lord Provost of Edinburgh has S 0 and his Glasgow counterpart has G 0 while the official car of the Lord Provost of Aberdeen has RG 0. In addition the Lord Mayor

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In fact, when the DVLA issues a car’s registration plate, they actually follow a very distinct system.

While it may look like a random combination, a number plate can actually tell you how old the car is and where it was registered.

A new format for registrations was introduced in September 2001, meaning all cars registered after that date would have their number plate made up of three parts.

How to tell where the car is from

The first section of a number plate is the local memory tag – the first two letters of the plate.

This identifies where the vehicle was registered, and is itself broken down into two parts.

The first letter stands for the local area, for example E denotes Essex, while L stands for London.

The plate’s second letter then identifies at which DVLA office in that area the registration took place – multiple letters can signify the same DVLA office.

How anyone can tell how old your car is just by looking at it

The two numbers in the middle of your plate identify how old the car is.

The DVLA issues two lots of number plate combinations each year on March and September 1st.

All plates issued between the 1 March and the end of August will use the same two numbers as the year they are registered.

For example, a car registered in May 2017 would have “17”.

Vehicles registered between September 1 and the end of February the following year, use a similar pattern of higher numbers.

When the format changed in 2001, this group of vehicles were identified differently by starting the labelling from “51” rather than “01”.

Therefore this second lot of numbers will always be 50 plus the year the car was registered – so after 2010, the number starts with a 6.

For example, a vehicle registered in December 2009 will show “59” on its plate but December 2011 will be “61”.

Is any of the plate random?

The final three letters of the number plate tend to be a random combination that make the registration unique.

But it’s not uncommon for cars with neighbouring letter sequences to be from the same manufacturer, due to batch allocation of new registrations to dealers by the DVLA.

The letters “Q” and “I” are excluded from the random sequence, along with any phrases that are deemed offensive.

Using the current scheme, there will be a sufficient combinations to last until the end of February 2051.

What about registrations before September 2001?

From 1983 onward, licence plates used a leading single letter to represent the year of first registration.

The letter “A” was used in 1983, progressing through the alphabet, finishing with “Y” at the end of August 2001.

The rest of the characters on the plate were random.

Prior to 1983, the same system was used, but with the year letter at the end of the plate rather than the beginning.

A PETITION against a police chief's decision to sell the first number plate issued to the county has gathered over 850 signatures.

Retired police constable Alan Matthews started the online petition after he found out that the 'AB 1' licence plate was up for auction.

Police enthusiasts have lambasted the decision to sell the plate, which has traditionally been used on the staff cars of Worcestershire's Chief Constables.

West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) John Campion claims the sale will enable him to invest in frontline policing.

Mr Matthews, aged 69, who worked for West Mercia Police from 1985 to 1994, said: "It's a piece of police heritage that shouldn't be sold off.

"It was the original number that the chief had. I just think that there's other ways the PCC could save money.

"I'm getting quire ratty about it. When you have been in the police you see how much waste there is.

"It's a sad thing that people in the UK have so much history but don't think much of it."

Jon Cherry, the director of regplates.com, thinks the plate will sell for between £225,000 and £275,000.

He said: "We have sold similar plates recently at this level and the market for high quality original issue number 1 plates is very strong.

"The buyers of these are intent on having only the best and only this plate will suffice!"

Mr Campion said his priority is use the assets at his disposal to make West Mercia a safe place.

"The prospect of a chief constable or any public servant using a private number plate belongs in a time gone by, both for security reasons and public expectation," he said.

"Therefore a considered decision has been made to market ‘AB 1’ and any sale proceeds will be reinvested towards frontline policing in West Mercia."

He acknowledged the history behind the plate but said it had not been used for around six years.

A spokesman for Mr Campion said he was not selling anything else apart from the number plate.

Vehicle registration was introduced in 1903 and it is believed 'AB 1' was first issued to Worcestershire's Chief Constable Herbert Sutherland Walker in 1908.

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It should be noted that the date denoted by a registration plate is the date a vehicle was first imported into the United Kingdom and registered with that registration system. For instance a vehicle manufactured in say 1991 and registered in Northern Ireland might have been given a 1993 registration letter when it was registered on the Swansea system. This also applies to vehicles imported from other countries. This is apparent by examining the registration document which will show a date of manufacture different from the date of first registration. The date of manufacture is notional, though, as vehicles may be manufactured and stored unused, for many years in some cases, and then registered as new when first registered into the system. This allows manufacturers to sell cars as new allowing for shipping, storing at dockyards etc.

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